New study revises Finless Porpoise Taxonomy and Yangtze River Porpoise conservation

Here is a link to a BBC news story summarizing the paper

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8767000/8767968.stm

Take home message is that:

The Chinese and Indo-Pacific Finless Porpoises are two separate species.  Both species even occur in sympatry without interbreeding apparently in an area near Hong Kong (I have heard of this from another source, so not sure if this is discussed in this paper)

The Yangtze River Porpoise is a distinct genetic group, but has not been formerly elevated to species (it is most closely related to the Chinese Finless Porpoise.  There are only less than 1000 of the Yangtze River Porpoise left, making them an urgent conservation priority.

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